


shrapnel & scrap

by casualbird



Series: dedue week 2020 [6]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fullmetal Alchemist, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22201573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casualbird/pseuds/casualbird
Summary: Felix and Dimitri go home to Resembool for repairs. Dedue is there, waiting, as always.Written for Dedue Week day 6--AU.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro
Series: dedue week 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593229
Comments: 12
Kudos: 35





	shrapnel & scrap

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this is just a little look into an au that's been on my mind for a while! felix is the youngest-ever state alchemist, dimitri is his armored companion, and dedue is an ishvalan automail smith hiding out in resembool. alois--is just major armstrong.

Dimitri can’t feel the jolt when Major Rangeld lays him on the floor of Dedue’s workshop. That is, he lays down the crate Dimitri occupies, his armor-body having been blasted half to scrap in their last fight.

The Major--Alois, he insists--asks Dimitri if he’s alright, if he needs anything before he takes his leave, goes to stand sentinel on the front step. To rest a moment, after carrying Dimitri’s carbon-steel bulk all the way from the train platform, uphill.

To be cajoled into sparring with Felix, probably. Even with his arm in smithereens, the pieces wrapped in oilcloth and slotted in with the shards of Dimitri, he’s been in a fighting mood.

Has _always_ been in a fighting mood, since the day he’d heard Glenn and Lambert died in Ishval. Since they’d tried, with tiny, joined hands, to bring them back.

Since they’d failed, and were broken, and every day they’ve spent since then clawing their way back up.

So he’ll probably want to beat the hell out of Major Rangeld. Really, he always has.

Dimitri likes him, though. He’d smile at him, if he could. But he can’t, so he just thanks the man for carrying him here.

Even though the walk was miserable. Even though people turned their heads, even though for the nth time, Dimitri has been reminded that he can no longer smell the fresh spring air of his hometown, cannot take in the familiar, comforting scents of sweet grass or sheep.

Rangeld leaves with a pitying smile, and when the whitewashed door clicks closed Dimitri finally feels as if he can breathe.

Figuratively.

Dedue must feel the same way, standing stock-still in the corner, arms folded. With a tired sigh he slips off his mirrored sunglasses, pinches the headache that forms in the bridge of his nose. Blinks.

Dedue’s philosopher-stone red eyes have given him nothing but trouble since he was a boy. With his brown skin and white hair, they’re a dangerous combination. Those things, he can’t hide, but his eyes... he doesn’t show them, much. Only when he’s working. Only when he and Dimitri and maybe Felix are alone together.

Dimitri likes them, though. They’re kind, even as tired as they are. Besides, his own eyes-the dim lights burning behind the visor of his helm--are red as well. Misunderstood, as well, if in a different way.

So they brighten, a little, when Dedue walks wordless toward him, stares appraisingly down into the crate.

“What did you get yourselves into?” Dedue means to sound stern, disapproving. Really, though, he can only muster the anger he’s reaching for around Felix, and he’s out in the field with one arm, kicking rocks. Glaring at passersby, probably baiting Rangeld. As it is, Dedue just sounds... worried.

“It’s a long story,” says Dimitri, in his tinny voice. Still, he sounds sheepish--just... as if he’s being sheepish down the phone, instead of right in front of Dedue.

Dedue sighs. “It is going to take me a long time to finish all these repairs.”

Dimitri’s sheepishness falls like a shot bird, sinking straight down into guilt. He casts his gaze down, preferring to stare at the lip of the crate, at his own wreckage than Dedue’s disappointment. He doesn’t say anything.

The silence stretches out like the journey to Resembool in the train’s cargo hold, miserable and protracted.

“Dimitri,” says Dedue, in that tone of his that means he’s given up. Moved on to the next thing, is praying to all the gods of Ishval for the serenity to keep putting up with the way things are. “Are the parts of Felix’s arm in with you?”

Dimitri nods, and Dedue narrows his eyes at the creaking of the joint where the helmet secures to the armor proper.

“May I reach in and get them, please?”

If Dimitri was capable of having headaches, he’d have had one all day. But this... would have helped. Dimitri is--big, certainly, too big for himself, and intimidating, and he cannot really _feel,_ but Dedue always asks anyway. 

Dimitri sighs, reflexive, and nods, hearing that awful creak again.

“I’ll have to get you some oil,” Dedue says, and Dimitri knows that that’s not an offhand statement--that everything he says he’ll have to do, he does. So he hums agreement, a resonant, metallic sound, and watches Dedue’s careful hands as they reach into the crate, feeling around for the oilcloth.

He pulls it out, unwraps it careful in those warm, worn hands. Shakes his head, clicks his tongue.

“All that work,” he murmurs. “Either Felix is going to have to find a new line of work, or I’m going to have to start improving my technique.”

Dimitri doesn’t say anything, hates more than anything the harsh metal sound of his laugh. Just--looks away, staring at the scratches in the floorboards.

He listens to Dedue’s footsteps, the sound of him settling at his workbench, the soft clink of metal. The shuffling around of of parts, of tools, of blueprints and schematics.

The soundscape is familiar, comforting. Dimitri has been watching, listening to Dedue work for a long time. Ever since he arrived, really.

Before they’d ever spoken, before Dedue ever met him with anything but a frown, but downcast covered eyes, Dimitri knew him by the sounds of his work.

His father, Dedue told him once, had been an automail smith in Ishval. Had gathered some renown, working under the name of Zoltan. His pieces were sturdy, understated, relentlessly functional. They could carry a man across the deserts of Ishval--but, when it came to it, could not carry Zoltan out.

Well. Not in body, not in soul, not in any of the ways that _really_ mattered. But in his work, in a valise of sketches, of endless scrawled notes tucked under his son’s arm, carried to Resembool by--some mechanism Dimitri had never truly understood.

He doesn’t have to, he supposes. It’s enough to know that Dedue has them.

Enough to know that Dedue has _him,_ has Felix. Has this--expertise, this legacy, this wonderful thing, and that he’ll deign to use it to care for them, just because they’d given him safe harbor all those years ago.

If Dimitri had had a heartbeat, it would have slowed, would have fallen into sync with the sounds of Dedue’s tools, of the old Ishval songs he hummed under his breath. If he’d had a stomach, it would have settled just as surely as if he’d had a cup of tea. If he’d had muscles, they would have come unknotted.

If Dimitri had been able to nod off, he would have. But--well, he was used to not sleeping at this point, as used to it as he figured he’d ever be. So instead he just... sits, vision falling out of focus, half-listening as the background noise all run together. It’s close enough.

Dimitri isn’t sure how much time has passed when he hears the scrape of Dedue’s chair against the floorboards, hears him rise, hears his little strained grunt, the cracking of his joints as he stretches.

“Forgive me,” he saus, voice a low, exhausted rasp, “but the two of you... ought to learn some self-preservation. You’re always... rushing into fights. Tearing yourselves apart. Felix in particular. There’s sand in the joints, here, water damage, soot.” A sigh, as dense and heavy as his anvil.

“Dimitri... I wish you two would tell me where you’ve been. What you’ve been doing.”

Dimitri shifts, huddling in on himself on instinct. As much as he can, really, when his joints are rusting, when he’s rent half to shreds.

Because he wants to. He wants to confide in him, to--to cough everything up, to lay it in a pile at Dedue’s feet. Wants to tell him about the fighting, about the terror, about the conspiracy that he’s certain is there, that he’s only just beginning to tug at the threads of. About Cornelia--about Ishval.

About how exhausted he is, how afraid.

About the way Felix snaps and spits at him, calls him names, _just an empty suit of armor,_ and even though it’s childish, even though his skin is shining steel, though his body is a bulwark, it cuts.

About how Dimitri misses Dedue, when everyone is asleep, when he sits up in the dark, trying to conjure the sounds of Dedue’s workshop from the ringing empty silence.

“I.. can’t.”

Dedue only sighs again, just as burdened, as ballasted as before. He gets down on his knees, the floorboards protesting under his weight, and his dim red eyes meet Dimitri’s own.

He looks like he’s been sleeping just as little as Dimitri has. But he blinks, looks down. Won’t draw attention to himself.

Raises his hands--he holds a can of oil in one, a rag in the other.

“I can finish with the automail later. I need to speak to Felix, at least try to get an idea of what kind of stress he’s putting on that arm. I thought I would... at least oil the joint in your neck, first.”

Dimitri nods--there’s that sound again, that awful squeal, like an ancient screen door. He almost laughs at it--from the look in his eye, Dedue is almost laughing, too.

He tips his head back, lets Dedue peer into the hollow of him. Lets him reach in, careful, tracing along the joint with the tip of one grease-smudged finger.

Dedue is so close--he almost feels warm.

The job is a quick one, over in less than half a minute. Dedue draws back, nods, and Dimitri tests the joint.

No creak. He thanks him, the sound echoing high in the hollow of his breastplate, and a smile flickers across Dedue’s face, lingering for just a second in his eyes.

“I know you’ve got enough on your plate,” says Dedue, after a moment. “Even though you won’t tell me what it is. But I want you to--consider me. Be careful. Do what you need to do, and nothing more. Get your bodies back.”

Another sigh.

“Come home, Dimitri. So I can... stop worrying about you.”

And Dimitri--cannot promise him anything. Cannot promise himself anything, cannot promise anything to Felix, to the Major, to _anyone._ There’s simply... too much in the air. Too much unknown.

But he can try. And he will, for--for so many people, for so many things. For Felix, for Glenn, for his father. For himself.

For Dedue.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed reading this as much as i did conceptualizing and writing it! please, let me know what you thought!
> 
> as always, you're free to come hang out with me on [twitter,](https://twitter.com/bird_scribbles) provided you're 18+.
> 
> thank you!


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